In a manufacturing process of a semiconductor device or in a manufacturing process of a flat panel display (FPD), there has been performed a cleaning process for removing particles or contaminations or a resist coating and developing process to a target substrate such as a semiconductor wafer or a glass substrate.
In a substrate processing apparatus for performing the above-described processes, a plurality of processing units for performing a process may be provided, a plurality of target substrates accommodated in a storage container may be transferred to each of the processing units in sequence by a transfer mechanism and processed therein, and the target substrates processed in each processing unit may be accommodated in the storage container.
In such a substrate processing apparatus, a process needs be performed at high speed. Therefore, there has been used a substrate processing apparatus including: a loading/unloading unit on which a storage container for accommodating substrates is mounted; a processing unit set including a plurality of processing units for performing a process; a plurality of stacked transit units for transiting target substrates between the loading/unloading unit and the processing unit set; and a transfer mechanism for transferring the target substrates. With this configuration, the target substrates unloaded in sequence from the storage container are transferred to one of the transit units by the transfer mechanism and transferred from the transit unit to each of the processing units by the transfer mechanism and then the processed target substrates are received by the storage container from the processing units via one of the transit units (see, for example, Patent Document 1).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2002-110609
In the substrate processing apparatus including a plurality of processing units and a plurality of transit units as described above, a target substrate is transferred from a storage container to one of the plurality of processing units via one of the plurality of transit units and processed therein. Here, if multiple processes are performed, the target substrate may be transferred to another processing unit and another process may be performed thereon. Thereafter, the processed target substrate needs to be transferred to the storage container via one of the transit units. Here, the storage container, the processing units, and the transit units to be used may be variously selected depending on a process pattern, and, thus, a transfer recipe which defines a transfer route of the target substrate may be created by an operator by selecting all modules to be used, i.e., the storage container, the transit units, and the processing units.
However, recently, in such a substrate processing apparatus, a requirement for throughput of a process is getting stricter, and in order to cope with this situation, the number of processing units or transit units has increased, and, thus, it becomes complicated to select all modules to be used whenever a transfer recipe is created. Further, since there may be a limitation in selecting the transit units depending on the selected modules, it is required to verify whether or not selection is proper at the time of creation of recipes and if not proper, it is required to recreate recipes with effort. Meanwhile, even if selection is proper and a transfer is available, it is difficult to know whether or not an optimum transit unit has been selected in view of throughput.
The present disclosure has been conceived in view of the foregoing circumstances and provides a substrate processing apparatus capable of simplifying creation of a transfer recipe and transferring a target substrate along an optimum transfer route and a substrate transfer method of the substrate processing apparatus.